hanging upside down from the rafters

Archive for March, 2011

I’ve just read this — technology that allows people to type with their minds. It’s intended for severely injured or paralysed patients, but… but… WOW!

Why “WOW!”?

Well, you know when you’re lying in bed at night trying to get to sleep, and your thoughts drift all over the place? And you suddenly realise that you’ve managed to get from thinking about tonight’s dinner to pondering memories of a mushroom you once saw on the front lawn?

A vicious one-eyed mushroom

Wouldn’t it be UTTERLY AWESOME to have that train of thought recorded? OK, maybe a bit scary, and imagine the opportunities for messing with civil liberties (“Dr Hennessy, I’m arresting you on suspicion of immoral and subversive thought behaviour, you have the right to remain silent but it won’t do you much good.”), but even so… you’d never ever have to worry about keeping a notebook with you at all times, and you’d end up with so much source material for writing…

I’m sitting watching The Wonders of the Universe, featuring the ever-grinning Professor Doctor Saint Brian Cox, and he’s rabbiting on about how long turtles have been laying their eggs on the same beach – longer than the continent in question has been in existence. And I thought to myself, that’s about as long as it is since I last blogged.

I’ve been proofreading (and a bit of copy-editing), liaising with the typesetter, cover designer and printer. I’ve been setting up events with the authors. I’ve talked to bookshops about stocking the books, I’ve sent out press releases, I’ve approached magazines and websites about reviewing the books, I even set up a Facebook page (please ‘like’ it – it needs friends!)… and what fun it all is!

It’s also totally nerve-wracking, especially when I had to email the printer to say, “yes, print hundreds of copies of these books.” My experience as a typesetter tells me there are always mistakes… and the best I can hope for is that they’re not too disastrous. I think the most galling mistake that slipped through was a typo in my own biography in last year’s student anthology!

The new Crime Express books aren’t officially available until April 1st, but you can get them (post free in the UK) from Inpress Books along with the previous books in the series. I’d strongly recommend them. All of them. They’re brilliant.

Anyway. I’ve resolved to write short but sweet blogs from now on. Easier to read, and much easier to persuade myself to write. So I’ll sign off for now, but promise to write more very soon about all the exciting goings-on in the life of the Old Bat.